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Somali Pirates take another cargo ship
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by mudricky | April 8, 2009 at 03:40 am
259 views | 22 Recommendations | 4 comments
Sky news has breaking news stating that Somali pirates have seized yet another ship a US cargo ship, Horn of Africa.
The ship has 21 American crew on board.
The 17,000-tonne vessel was attacked in the Indian Ocean, 400 miles from the Somali capital Mogadishu.
Andrew Mwangura, of the Kenya-based East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme, said all the crew are believed to be safe.
He said the vessel is thought to be the Danish-owned Maersk Alabama.
A spokesman for the US Navy confirmed there were American citizens on board, but did not say how many.
He said the ship was operated by Danish company Maersk, which carried out work for the US Department of Defence.
The vessel is the first to be captured with an all-American crew.
On Monday, pirates hijacked a British-owned, Italian-operated ship with 16 Bulgarian crew on board.
Over the weekend, they also seized a French yacht, a Yemeni tug, and a 20,000-tonne German container vessel.Interfax news agency said the Hansa Stavanger had a German captain, three Russians, two Ukrainians, and 14 Filipinos on board.
The pirates typically use speed boats launched from "mother ships", which means they can usually evade foreign navy ships patrolling the area.They often take captured vessels to remote coastal villages in Somalia.
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Amy Judd
Vancouver, Canada
Fred Miller
Friendswood, Texas, United States
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (4)
at 16:45 on April 8th, 2009
A Canadian warship intercepted an attack on a vessel carrying food for Somalia this past weekend. There have been a couple of attacks since then, but I bet it'll get more attention now, since there are Americans on board this time.
at 08:23 on April 8th, 2009
Alertnet are reporting "The U.S. crew of a hijacked U.S.-flagged container ship in the Indian Ocean appears to have retaken control of the vessel"
at 17:27 on April 8th, 2009
war at sea.
at 13:46 on April 9th, 2009
For years, our govenments have been reducing the size of our Navies, and now we are paying the consequences. The Indian Ocean is too big for the too-few ships to protect from pirates.